MR. O’LEARY.
At the conclusion of my last chapter I was about to introduce to my
reader’s acquaintance my friend Mr. O’Leary; and, as he is destined to
occupy some place in the history of these Confessions, I may, perhaps,
be permitted to do so at more length than his intrinsic merit at first
sight might appear to warrant.
Mr. O’Leary was, and I am induced to believe is, a particularly short,
fat, greasy-looking gentleman, with a head as free from phrenological
development as a billiard-ball, and a countenance which, in feature and
colour, nearly resembled the face of a cherub, carved in oak, as we see
them in old pulpits.
Short as is his stature, his limbs compose the least part of it. His
hands and feet, forming some compensation by their ample proportions,
with short, thick fins, vulgarly called a cobbler’s thumb. His voice
varying in cadence from a deep barytone, to a high falsetto, maintains
throughout the distinctive characteristic of a Dublin accent and
pronunciation, and he talks of the “Veel of Ovoca, and a beef-steek,”
with some price of intonation. What part of the Island he came
originally from, or what may be his age, are questions I have the most
profound ignorance of; I have heard many anecdotes which would imply
his being what the French call “d’un age mur”—but his own observations
are generally limited to events occurring since the peace of “fifteen.”
To his personal attractions, such as they are, he has never been
solicitous of contributing by the meretricious aids of dress. His coat,
calculating from its length of waist, and ample skirt, would fit Bumbo
Green, while his trowsers, being made of some cheap and shrinking
material, have gradually contracted their limits, and look now exactly
like knee-breeches, without the usual buttons at the bottom.
These, with the addition of a pair of green spectacles, the glass of
one being absent, and permitting the look-out of a sharp, grey eye,
twinkling with drollery and good humour, form the most palpable of his
externals. In point of character, they who best knew him represented
him as the best-tempered, best-hearted fellow breathing; ever ready to
assist a friend, and always postponing his own plans and his own views,
when he had any, to the wishes and intentions of others. Among the many
odd things about him, was a constant preference to travelling on foot,
and a great passion for living abroad, both of which tastes he
gratified, although his size might seem to offer obstacles to the one,
and his total ignorance of every continental language, would appear to
preclude the other; with a great liking for tobacco, which he smoked
all day—a fondness for whist and malt liquors—his antipathies were few;
so that except when called upon to shave more than once in the week, or
wash his hands twice on the same day, it was difficult to disconcert
him. His fortune was very ample; but although his mode of living was
neither very ostentatious nor costly, he contrived always to spend his
income. Such was the gentleman I now presented to my friends, who, I
must confess, appeared strangely puzzled by his manner and appearance.
This feeling, however, soon wore off; and before he had spent the
morning in their company, he had made more way in their good graces,
and gone farther to establish intimacy, than many a more accomplished
person, with an unexceptionable coat and accurate whisker might have
effected in a fortnight. What were his gifts in this way, I am, alas,
most deplorably ignorant of; it was not, heaven knows, that he
possessed any conversational talent—of successful flattery he knew as
much as a negro does of the national debt—and yet the “bon-hommie” of
his character seemed to tell at once; and I never knew him fail in any
one instance to establish an interest for himself before he had
completed the ordinary period of a visit.
I think it is Washington Irving who has so admirably depicted the
mortification of a dandy angler, who, with his beaver garnished with
brown hackles, his well-posed rod, polished gaff, and handsome
landing-net, with every thing befitting, spends his long summer day
whipping a trout stream without a rise or even a ripple to reward him,
while a ragged urchin, with a willow wand, and a bent pin, not ten
yards distant, is covering the greensward with myriads of speckled and
scaly backs, from one pound weight to four; so it is in every
thing—“the race is not to the swift;” the elements of success in life,
whatever be the object of pursuit, are very, very different from what
we think them at first sight, and so it was with Mr. O’Leary, and I
have more than once witnessed the triumph of his homely manner and
blunt humour over the more polished and well-bred taste of his
competitors for favour; and what might have been the limit to such
success, heaven alone can tell, if it were not that he laboured under a
counter-balancing infirmity, sufficient to have swamped a
line-of-battle ship itself. It was simply this—a most unfortunate
propensity to talk of the wrong place, person, or time, in any society
he found himself; and this taste for the mal apropos, extended so far,
that no one ever ventured into company with him as his friend, without
trembling for the result; but even this, I believe his only fault,
resulted from the natural goodness of his character and intentions;
for, believing as he did, in his honest simplicity, that the arbitrary
distinctions of class and rank were held as cheaply by others as
himself, he felt small scruple at recounting to a duchess a scene in a
cabaret, and with as little hesitation would he, if asked, have sung
the “Cruiskeen lawn,” or the “Jug of Punch,” after Lablanche had
finished the “Al Idea,” from Figaro. ‘Mauvaise honte,’ he had none;
indeed I am not sure that he had any kind of shame whatever, except
possibly when detected with a coat that bore any appearance of newness,
or if overpersuaded to wear gloves, which he ever considered as a
special effeminacy.
Such, in a few words, was the gentleman I now presented to my friends,
and how far he insinuated himself into their good graces, let the fact
tell, that on my return to the breakfast-room, after about an hour’s
absence, I heard him detailing the particulars of a route they were to
take by his advice, and also learned that he had been offered and had
accepted a seat in their carriage to Paris.
“Then I’ll do myself the pleasure of joining your party, Mrs. Bingham,”
said he. “Bingham, I think, madam, is your name.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Any relation, may I ask, of a most dear friend of mine, of the same
name, from Currynaslattery, in the county Wexford?”
“I am really not aware,” said Mrs. Bingham. “My husband’s family are, I
believe, many of them from that county.”
“Ah, what a pleasant fellow was Tom!” said Mr. O’Leary musingly, and
with that peculiar tone which made me tremble, for I knew well that a
reminiscence was coming. “A pleasant fellow indeed.”
“Is he alive, sir, now?”
“I believe so, ma’am; but I hear the climate does not agree with him.”
“Ah, then, he’s abroad! In Italy probably?”
“No, ma’am, in Botany Bay. His brother, they say, might have saved him,
but he left poor Tom to his fate, for he was just then paying court to
a Miss Crow, I think, with a large fortune. Oh, Lord, what have I said,
it’s always the luck of me!” The latter exclamation was the result of a
heavy saugh upon the floor, Mrs. Bingham having fallen in a faint—she
being the identical lady alluded to, and her husband the brother of
pleasant Tom Bingham.
To hurl Mr. O’Leary out of the room by one hand, and ring the bell with
the other, was the work of a moment; and with proper care, and in due
time, Mrs. Bingham was brought to herself, when most fortunately, she
entirely forgot the cause of her sudden indisposition; and, of course,
neither her daughter nor myself suffered any clue to escape us which
might lead to its discovery.
When we were once more upon the road, to efface if it might be
necessary any unpleasant recurrence to the late scene, I proceeded to
give Mrs. Bingham an account of my adventure at Chantraine, in which,
of course, I endeavoured to render my friend O’Leary all the honours of
being laughed at in preference to myself, laying little stress upon my
masquerading in the jack-boots.
“You are quite right,” said O’Leary, joining in the hearty laugh
against him, “quite right, I was always a very heavy sleeper—indeed if
I wasn’t I wouldn’t be here now, travelling about en garcon, free as
air;” here he heaved a sigh, which from its incongruity with his jovial
look and happy expression, threw us all into renewed laughter.
“But why, Mr. O’Leary—what can your sleepiness have to do with such
tender recollections, for such, I am sure, that sigh bespeaks them?”
“Ah! ma’am, it may seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, if it
were not for that unfortunate tendency, I should now be the happy
possessor of a most accomplished and amiable lady, and eight hundred
per annum three and a half per cent. stock.”
“You overslept yourself on the wedding-day, I suppose.”
“You shall hear, ma’am, the story is a very short one: It is now about
eight years ago, I was rambling through the south of France, and had
just reached Lyons, where the confounded pavement, that sticks up like
pears, with the point upwards, had compelled me to rest some days and
recruit; for this purpose I installed myself in the pension of Madame
Gourgead, Rue de Petits Carmes, a quiet house—where we dined at twelve,
ten in number, upon about two pounds of stewed beef, with garlic and
carrots—a light soup, being the water which accompanied the same to
render it tender in stewing—some preserved cherries, and an omelette,
with a pint bottle of Beaune, 6me qualite, I believe—a species of
pyroligneous wine made from the vine stalks, but pleasant in summer
with your salad; then we played dominos in the evening, or whist for
sous points, leading altogether a very quiet and virtuous existence, or
as Madame herself expressed it, ‘une vie tout-a-fait patriarchale;’ of
this I cannot myself affirm how far she was right in supposing the
patriarchs did exactly like us. But to proceed, in the same
establishment there lived a widow whose late husband had been a wine
merchant at Dijon—he had also, I suppose from residing in that country,
been imitating the patriarchs, for he died one day. Well, the lady was
delayed at Lyons for some law business, and thus it came about, that
her husband’s testament and the sharp paving stones in the streets
determined we should be acquainted. I cannot express to you the delight
of my fair countrywoman at finding that a person who spoke English had
arrived at the ‘pension’—a feeling I myself somewhat participated in;
for to say truth, I was not at that time a very great proficient in
French. We soon became intimate, in less time probably than it could
otherwise have happened, for from the ignorance of all the others of
one word of English, I was enabled during dinner to say many soft and
tender things, which one does not usually venture on in company.
“I recounted my travels, and told various adventures of my wanderings,
till at last, from being merely amused, I found that my fair friend
began to be interested in my narratives; and frequently when passing
the bouillon to her, I have seen a tear in the corner of her eye: in a
word, ‘she loved me for the dangers I had passed,’ as Othello says.
Well, laugh away if you like, but it’s truth I am telling you.” At this
part of Mr. O’Leary’s story we all found it impossible to withstand the
ludicrous mock heroic of his face and tone, and laughed loud and long.
When we at length became silent he resumed—“Before three weeks had
passed over, I had proposed and was accepted, just your own way, Mr.
Lorrequer, taking the ball at the hop, the very same way you did at
Cheltenham, the time the lady jilted you, and ran off with your friend
Mr. Waller; I read it all in the news, though I was then in Norway
fishing.” Here there was another interruption by a laugh, not, however,
at Mr. O’Leary’s expense. I gave him a most menacing look, while he
continued—“the settlements were soon drawn up, and consisted, like all
great diplomatic documents, of a series of ‘gains and compensations;’
thus, she was not to taste any thing stronger than kirsch wasser, or
Nantz brandy; and I limited myself to a pound of short-cut weekly, and
so on: but to proceed, the lady being a good Catholic, insisted upon
being married by a priest of her own persuasion, before the performance
of the ceremony at the British embassy in Paris; to this I could offer
no objection, and we were accordingly united in the holy bonds the same
morning, after signing the law papers.”
“Then, Mr. O’Leary, you are really a married man.”
“That’s the very point I’m coming to, ma’am; for I’ve consulted all the
jurists upon the subject, and they never can agree. But you shall hear.
I despatched a polite note to Bishop Luscombe, and made every
arrangement for the approaching ceremony, took a quartier in the Rue
Helder, near the Estaminet, and looked forward with anxiety for the day
which was to make my happy; for our marriage in Lyons was only a kind
of betrothal. Now, my fair friend had but one difficulty remaining,
poor dear soul—I refrain from mentioning her name for delicacy sake;
but poor dear Mrs. Ram could not bear the notion of our going up to
Paris in the same conveyance, for long as she had lived abroad, she had
avoided every thing French, even the language, so she proposed that I
should go in the early ‘Diligence,’ which starts at four-o’clock in the
morning, while she took her departure at nine; thus I should be some
hours sooner in Paris, and ready to receive her on her arriving;
besides sparing her bashfulness all reproach of our travelling
together. It was no use my telling her that I always travelled on foot,
and hated a ‘Diligence;’ she coolly replied that at our time of life we
could not spare the time necessary for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for
so she supposed the journey from Lyons to Paris to be; so fearing lest
any doubt might be thrown upon the ardour of my attachment, I yielded
at once, remembering at the moment what my poor friend Tom Bing—Oh
Lord, I’m at it again!”
“Sir, I did not hear.”
“Nothing, ma’am, I was just going to observe, that ladies of a certain
time of life, and widows especially, like a lover that seems a little
ardent or so, all the better.” Here Mrs. Bingham blushed, her daughter
bridled, and I nearly suffocated with shame and suppressed laughter.
“After a most tender farewell of my bride or wife, I don’t know which,
I retired for the night with a mind vacillating between my hopes of
happiness and my fears for the result of a journey so foreign to all my
habits of travelling, and in which I could not but tremble at the many
casualties my habitual laziness and dislike to any hours but of my own
choosing might involve me in.
“I had scarcely lain down in bed, ere these thoughts took such
possession of me, that sleep for once in my life was out of the
question; and then the misery of getting up at four in the
morning—putting on your clothes by the flickering light of the porter’s
candle—getting your boots on the wrong feet, and all that kind of
annoyance—I am sure I fretted myself into the feeling of a downright
martyr before an hour was over. Well at least, thought I, one thing is
well done,—I have been quite right in coming to sleep here at the
Messagerie Hotel, where the diligence starts from, or the chances are
ten to one that I never should wake till the time was past. Now,
however, they are sure to call me; so I may sleep tranquilly till then.
Meanwhile I had forgotten to pack my trunk—my papers, &c. laying all
about the room in a state of considerable confusion. I rose at once
with all the despatch I could muster; this took a long time to effect,
and it was nearly two o’clock ere I finished, and sat down to smoke a
solitary pipe,—the last, as I supposed it might be my lot to enjoy for
heaven knows how long, Mrs. R. having expressed, rather late in our
intimacy I confess, strong opinions against tobacco within doors.
“When I had finished my little sac of the ‘weed,’ the clock struck
three, and I started to think how little time I was destined to have in
bed. In bed! why, said I, there is no use thinking of it now, for I
shall scarcely have lain down ere I shall be obliged to get up again.
So thinking, I set about dressing myself for the road; and by the time
I had enveloped myself in a pair of long Hungarian gaiters, and a
kurtcha of sheep’s wool, with a brown bear-skin outside, with a Welsh
wig, and a pair of large dark glass goggles to defend the eyes from the
snow, I was not only perfectly impervious to all effects of the
weather, but so thoroughly defended from any influence of sight or
sound, that a volcano might be hissing and thundering within ten yards
of me, without attracting my slightest attention. Now, I thought,
instead of remaining here, I’ll just step down to the coach, and get
snugly in the diligence, and having secured the corner of the coupé,
resign myself to sleep with the certainty of not being left behind,
and, probably, too, be some miles on my journey before awaking.
“I accordingly went down stairs, and to my surprise found, even at that
early hour, that many of the garcons of the house were stirring and
bustling about, getting all the luggage up in the huge wooden leviathan
that was to convey us on our road. There they stood, like bees around a
hive, clustering and buzzing, and all so engaged that with difficulty
could I get an answer to my question of, What diligence it was? ‘La
diligence pour Paris, Monsieur.’
“‘Ah, all right then,’ said I; so watching an opportunity to do so
unobserved, for I supposed they might have laughed at me, I stepped
quietly into the coupé; and amid the creaking of cordage, and the
thumping of feet on the roof, fell as sound asleep as ever I did in my
life—these sounds coming to my muffled ears, soft as the echoes on the
Rhine. When it was that I awoke I cannot say; but as I rubbed my eyes
and yawned after a most refreshing sleep, I perceived that it was still
quite dark all around, and that the diligence was standing before the
door of some inn and not moving. Ah, thought I, this is the first
stage; how naturally one always wakes at the change of horses,—a kind
of instinct implanted by Providence, I suppose, to direct us to a
little refreshment on the road. With these pious feelings I let down
the glass, and called out to the garcon for a glass of brandy and a
cigar. While he was bringing them, I had time to look about, and
perceived, to my very great delight, that I had the whole coupé to
myself. ‘Are there any passengers coming in here?’ said I, as the
waiter came forward with my petit verre. ‘I should think not, sir,’
said the fellow with a leer. ‘Then I shall have the whole coupé to
myself?’ said I. ‘Monsieur need have no fear of being disturbed; I can
safely assure him that he will have no one there for the next
twenty-four hours.’ This was really pleasant intelligence; so I chucked
him a ten sous piece, and closing up the window as the morning was
cold, once more lay back to sleep with a success that has never failed
me. It was to a bright blue cloudless sky, and the sharp clear air of a
fine day in winter, that I at length opened my eyes. I pulled out my
watch, and discovered it was exactly two o’clock; I next lowered the
glass and looked about me, and very much to my surprise discovered that
the diligence was not moving, but standing very peaceably in a very
crowded congregation of other similar and dissimilar conveyances, all
of which seemed, I thought, to labour under some physical ailment, some
wanting a box, others a body, &c. &c. and in fact suggesting the idea
of an infirmary for old and disabled carriages of either sex, mails and
others. ‘Oh, I have it,’ cried I, ‘we are arrived at Mt. Geran, and
they are all at dinner, and from my being alone in the coupé, they have
forgotten to call me.’ I immediately opened the door and stepped out
into the innyard, crowded with conducteurs, grooms, and ostlers, who, I
thought, looked rather surprised at seeing me emerge from the
diligence.
“‘You did not know I was there,’ said I, with a knowing wink at one of
them as I passed.
“‘Assurement non,’ said the fellow with a laugh, that was the signal
for all the others to join in it. ‘Is the table d’hote over?’ said I,
regardless of the mirth around me. ‘Monsieur is just in time,’ said the
waiter, who happened to pass with a soup-tureen in his hand. ‘Have the
goodness to step this way.’ I had barely time to remark the close
resemblance of the waiter to the fellow who presented me with my brandy
and cigar in the morning, when he ushered me into a large room with
about forty persons sitting at a long table, evidently waiting with
impatience for the ‘Potage’ to begin their dinner. Whether it was they
enjoyed the joke of having neglected to call me, or that they were
laughing at my travelling costume, I cannot say, but the moment I came
in, I could perceive a general titter run through the assembly. ‘Not
too late, after all, gentlemen,’ said I, marching gravely up the table.
“‘Monsieur is in excellent time,’ said the host, making room for me
beside his chair. Notwithstanding the incumbrance of my weighty
habiliments, I proceeded to do ample justice to the viands before me,
apologizing laughingly to the host, by pleading a traveller’s appetite.
“‘Then you have perhaps come far this morning,’ said a gentleman
opposite.
“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I have been on the road since four o’clock.’
“‘And how are the roads?’ said another. ‘Very bad,’ said I, ‘the first
few stages from Lyons, afterwards much better.’ This was said at a
venture, as I began to be ashamed of being always asleep before my
fellow-travellers. They did not seem, however, to understand me
perfectly; and one old fellow putting down his spectacles from his
forehead, leaned over and said: ‘And where, may I ask, has Monsieur
come from this morning?’
“‘From Lyons,’ said I, with the proud air of a man who has done a stout
feat, and is not ashamed of the exploit.
“‘From Lyons!’ said one. ‘From Lyons!’ cried another. ‘From Lyons!’
repeated a third.
“‘Yes,’ said I; ‘what the devil is so strange in it; travelling is so
quick now-a-days, one thinks nothing of twenty leagues before dinner.’
“The infernal shout of laughing that followed my explanation is still
in my ears; from one end of the table to the other there was one
continued ha, ha, ha—from the greasy host to the little hunchbacked
waiter, they were all grinning away.
“‘And how did Monsieur travel?’ said the old gentleman, who seemed to
carry on the prosecution against me.
“‘By the diligence, the “Aigle noir,”’ said I, giving the name with
some pride, that I was not altogether ignorant of the conveyance.
“‘Then you should certainly not complain of the roads,’ said the host
chuckling; ‘for the only journey that diligence has made this day has
been from the street-door to the inn-yard; for as they found when the
luggage was nearly packed that the axle was almost broken through, they
wheeled it round to the court, and prepared another for the
travellers.’
“‘And where am I now?’ said I.
“‘In Lyons,’ said twenty voices, half choked with laughter at my
question.
“I was thunderstruck at the news at first; but as I proceeded with my
dinner, I joined in the mirth of the party, which certainly was not
diminished on my telling them the object of my intended journey.
“‘I think, young man,’ said the old fellow with the spectacles, ‘that
you should take the occurrence as a warning of Providence that marriage
will not suit you.’ I began to be of the same opinion;—but then there
was the jointure. To be sure, I was to give up tobacco; and perhaps I
should not be as free to ramble about as when en garcon. So taking all
things into consideration, I ordered in another bottle of burgundy, to
drink Mrs. Ram’s health—got my passport vised for Barege—and set out
for the Pyrenees the same evening.”
“And have you never heard any thing more of the lady?” said Mrs.
Bingham.
“Oh, yes. She was faithful to the last; for I found out when at Rome
last winter that she had offered a reward for me in the newspapers, and
indeed had commenced a regular pursuit of me through the whole
continent. And to tell the real fact, I should not now fancy turning my
steps towards Paris, if I had not very tolerable information that she
is in full cry after me through the Wengen Alps, I having contrived a
paragraph in Galignani, to seduce her thither, and where, with the
blessing of Providence, if the snow set in early, she must pass the
winter.”